Exploring the Intriguing
Category: Current Affairs
CNN has reported that Argentina has agreed to legalize gay marriage. Yes, highly Catholic Argentina. It's heartening to see that it's not only the US and Western Europe where this kind of progress is being made.
I still subscribe to the belief that by 2020, gay marriage will be legal in at least half the states of the US.
FDO
Peter Beinart provides numerous interesting reflections on President Reagan and how his administration has been (mis)characterized in the past twenty years. One line stood out to me as having critical current implications.
“If Obama does not want to be Jimmy Carter, if he does not want Americans to equate his restraint with their humiliation, he must be as aggressive as Reagan in finding symbolic ways to soothe Americans' wounded pride.”
This is a great quote because it suggests one of the ways in which the ultimate in soft power (words) can serve some of the same functions as the ultimate in hard power (war): making us feel better. In the America of September 12th, our national belief in the comfort, safety and invulnerability of our society were fractured.
Perhaps as important, the images we held of ourselves were in jeopardy. Arching our collective back and clenching the national fist felt necessary and urgent. Ultimately, our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were much more about vengeance than self-defense.
At this point, though, it’s clear we aren’t ‘winning’ these wars. Acknowledging that reality, while boosting national confidence in who we are, will require President Obama’s greatest rhetorical efforts yet. He’ll be doing something that hurts while saying something that heals.
FDO
… but now our trash pickup service now seems ultra modern. We have a driver who moves the trash truck into position, releases a mechanism and grasps the trash can. It looks fast, efficient and safe. It also looks like there will be less need for sanitation workers. The down side of progress.
Here’s the closest visual I could find (in 45 seconds of searching).
FDO
The obviously blown call that stole a perfect game from Armando Galarraga should push Bud Selig and the rest of baseball’s elite to create a strong, consistent replay system of some sort. I strongly believe that in a game struggling to maintain the interest of young people, instituting instant replay could be an opportunity to make baseball seem more a 21st and less a 20th century game. Baseball’s challenge system should be fun.
Here’s my idea. A manager can consult with the umpires on the field and decide to challenge a ruling (or non-ruling). The manager gives the umpire a red ball. If the manager wins the challenge, the umpire returns the red ball. If not, the umpire keeps it. The manager can continue to use the red ball until he loses a challenge (and the ball).
After the red ball has been taken, the manager will still have a blue ball. This ball serves the same function as the red ball except that the blue ball, once taken, will not be returned until the end of the series. Baseball series are usually three games but not always. In some ways, two and four game series may play out a bit differently relative to challenge strategy.
The entire process will add intrigue, drama, strategy and hopefully fairness to individual baseball games. These are the elements that will help ensure folks are talking about baseball for all the right reasons.
FDO
When's the next 2Pac album dropping? At this point, it's been long enough people are going to start believing he's actually dead.
FDO
I've really been digging this track from Nasio Fontaine. Great lyrics and a wonderful sound. 21st century reggae is in great shape!
FDO
Hey, I love the Cream song 'Politician'.
I'm in the storm before the calm of Finals week. Spending time to blog has felt like a true luxury item as of late. I hope to take some time to do more this weekend.
Today's big, early DC news is kinda local for me. Ft. Wayne IN is a couple hours away. (Close enough that I've driven to a bar there to watch my favorite unknown guitarist perform. Blessings, EJ.) Their US Rep Mark Souder resigned today because of a sexual relationship with a staffer. This is perfect timing for me because my US History classes are learning about Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
Part of the follow up involves comparing the expectations we have of high school students at a Jesuit school compared to the expectations of the American public for our Presidents. When students learn that the leaders of the House prosecution of Clinton, Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich, also had extramarital affairs, they are shocked. Hopefully the Souder news will help indicate how common this situation is among political figures.
FDO
I’ve had students challenge President Barack Obama’s Blackness, asking why it is that he and everyone else seems to consider him Black although he has approximately equal Black and White parentage. Usually I just talk about the one drop rule and social perception without going much deeper. Often students will chime in that Obama never really had a choice, insisting that Black was the only race he could have been in America.
The revelation of his single Census box identity as Black has ratcheted up this conversation and led to some interesting responses. Melissa Harris-Lacewell suggests that Obama created “a definitional crisis for whiteness” by transforming the expectations of what Black and White lives are supposed to look like. She believes Obama won election in 2008 largely because his life hit all the marks previously associated with success in the White community and his decision to identify himself as Black is a deliberate effort to embrace his Blackness.
John Judis subtitles his piece on the subject “Why Barack Obama Isn’t Black” and discusses the one drop rule as a legacy of slavery and racism while positing that Obama did the expected but not best thing by indicating himself as Black only. Refusing to accept the paradigm, Judis seems to say, is the only way to remove the power of race as a social construction.
Even though I understand the hue and cry, the President’s choice seems remarkably simple to me: He thinks of himself as Black. That in no way diminishes his affection for his mother and grandparents; it certainly doesn’t elevate his absent father. Barack Obama was born in America and has been defined as Black for his entire life. How many of us have ever said (or even thought) Barack Obama is the 43rd White man to become President? Our country does not define Whiteness in the same ways we define Blackness and President or not, that’s the reality for Barack Obama in the same way it is for everyone else.
Judis wants the President to begin challenging conventional notions of race by checking more than one box. I would suggest that Harris-Lacewell provides a great answer to that request. Living as he does, accomplishing what he has, being who he is challenge race theory more than any form possibly could.
FDO
I wrote this poem a couple years ago and a NY Times article today encouraged me to post it. I love the phrase and the sentiment behind it.
Remix America
Mestizo mulatto hyphenated hybrid
Mixed up creole cultural mélange of meaning
As who we are and what we used to be pale
next to tomorrow’s endless postmodern possibilities of
Perpetual people driven progress
All the ‘I’s and ‘US’s can become ‘They’s and ‘We’s sooner than YouTube presents the next
Macaca spewing hate monger would be divider
Who unites us in disdain
For his antiquated rhetoric of race,
Religion and righteousness
The 3 Rs that used to keep the South backwards,
Black folks scared and the rarely compassionate conservatives
entrenched in their oh so corrupting power
The beauty of the remix
And the America it is frenetically remaking
Is that all the little boxes
Will mean the very same thing in the end
More empty spaces we can fill
Exactly as we choose
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Well, at least since his inauguration.
Not only is the world still buzzing about healthcare reform passing but now he's achieved the most substantial nuclear arms reduction in the last couple decades AND gained the country around $8 billion through the Citigroup bailout. Kudos, Mr. President. Let's hope this roll continues!
FDO
The WhoDeannyPod 